For the most part, anything I tie for open-water fly-fishing I can call a “fly”…even if its a frog pattern. That’s already pushing the limit much to far for some, of course. But for Ice-fishing, for some reason it bothers me to call it a fly, because I’m not fly-fishing with it. I could in warmer weather, I suppose, but I’m not. I’m simply vertically jigging these below the ice with a 28" ice-fishing rod. So, it seems appropriate to me to term these ice-fishing “lures”, rather than “flies”.
To each their own on the whole nomenclature issue. I know a number of other folks here that live in the northern part of the US and Canada ice-fish, so I wanted to share these. I hope nobody minds stretching the limit of this fly-tying forum to such extreme limits?
I tied up some of these “lures” for ice-fishing. I haven’t tried them all yet. The ones with the rubber bodies, I HAVE tried, and they worked EXTREMELY well for bluegills and crappies and bass. So well, in fact, that I didn’t even tip them with the customary waxworm or maggot. It seems the fish like chewing on that soft stretchy rubber so much that they hold onto it longer, and start swimming off with it, making strike detection easier.
The bottom two have slim strips of Chamois for the tail. I think the movement and texture will make these good ice-fishing lures, too…but the fish will have the final say.
I tie something almost identical to that for ice fishing and actually seel a good handfull of them every year, speaking of wich I should probably get a handful tied for the season as the ice is building well just norht of us.
Haven’t ice fished since around 1980! Those would have been killers for yellow perch on Lake Champlain, in upstate New York! Were beadheads even around back then? I can’t remember! LOL!!! BTW, streamer flies are often referred to as lures.
Dave,
The line between fly-fishing and other means is gray at best. Many fishermen in the Rockies fish flies with spinning outfits and bubbles. Or they’ll fish a fly rod with a spinning outfit and weighted nymphs. So I don’t fret about what’s a ‘fly’ or not. Did you tie it? Then it’s a fly. How it gets used, maybe ear-rings, doesn’t change what it is.
I tie a lot of ‘flies’ for fishermen other than flyfishers. These are castable with spinning outfits or trollable with conventional gear. They are still hand-tied, so they would qualify as flies, although they mimick fish. But that doesn’t stop people from calling streamers ‘streamer-flies’.
These are my largest examples so far of ‘flies’ NOT meant for a fly-rod, but for trolling for marlin off Cabo. (double 12/0 & 17/0 Deceiver patterns)
Dave,
I don’t ice-fish, but I’d like to try some flies out for ice-fishing. Would you want to give them a try for me? They are jigs like yours, but 1-step ice-dub patterns.
Send me your address if you want to give some a shot.
Dave, those will definitely work! It looks like we might actually get enough ice to get out on it this weekend. The gills were biting a firetiger jig (Custom Jigs and Spins size 12 Diamond Jig) for me this morning. It’s a color combo I don’t use a whole lot… going to play with it some more in my jig and fly tying and see if the fish really like it around here.
My favorite cold water colors are white, pink, and blue at the moment…
Dave,
If you describe some of those flies, and the steps to tie them omitting the specific colors, many fly tyers would assume you’re tying a nymph of some kind. Like you said, when fishing through a hole in the ice, you’re jigging. That’s just a specific fishing action. But when done with a fly rod people call it nymphing. It’s all a matter of semantics. For what it’s worth, all flies are lures by definition, but not lures are flies.
I’ve never Ice fished, but since I got into rod building I’ve wanted to build an Ice rod. For nothing else than they are relative cheap to make.
I thnk you’re the one who turned me on to the Rose Creek Ice Jig box for toting my flies around, so I guess it sorta stands to reason that there might be something that could be misconstrued as an ice jig or two in there as well . . . ?
That doesn’t work WW… You have to cut a loooooooong skinny hole. Takes most of the day, but at least you don’t have to worry about your backcast.
I icefish most everyday and it’s been a good year. I tie a few ice flies/jigs. I actually sat down and tied a few bass flies yesterday. I owed albasurf one. It’s ready to go in the mail.
I don’t ice fish, primarily because I don’t do snow so I live where that’s not going to be an issue. But if you put those onto end of a tippet attached to my fly rod, I’d call them ‘flies’ and catch fish with them.
Most of them would catch trout in the rivers and lakes that I fish in. A few would be killer bluegill flies, and I’d guarantee that you could catch all the smallmouth bass you wanted with ANY of them along the dam at Vallecito Lake in July.
And as far as building an Ice Rod goes, I’ve built on a few of the ones with the micro tips…they make cool little fly rods. The rods blanks were 40" and I added a butt extension of 8" for the grip/reel seat, giving me a four foot rod. Casts well with a 4 wt. line (but you HAVE to learn to keep your cast UP ;).
Gandolf,
I tried some of the ice lures in my picture yesterday. The top left one worked the best by far, with many fish taking it without any bait on it. The top-right one used thicker rubber, and got a lot of “looks”, but fewer fish. I also tried the bottom-right one. It worked ok, and the chamois tail gave it excellent action, but overall it seemed to work best if tipped with a waxworm or red maggot.
The rubbery material is legs cut from various sizes of children’s toys that you can often find at your local drug store/dime store, such as Walgreen’s, or even at Target, Wal-Mart, etc.
Here’s some examples of such toys: http://www.starmagic.com/Koosh-like-Porcupine-ball.html
Hide, you don’t need the long hole you just need a target for the fly to land in. My luck though, even if I hit the hole (which would need to be at least 48"dia.) the line would freeze to the ice between the hole and me on the bank(next to a camp fire). The fish would take the fly, break the tippet and I’d never know.
Ahhh… I beg to differ. You obviously have never tried it. Fish through the ice “tend” to be at least 5-6 feet deep. So - using your theory, you would have to then “feed” the line down the hole and yes, the line would freeze to the ice… I’m telling you, don’t argue with a man who has as much time on his hands as I do.
The greatest difficulty is not hitting the hole with the cast. It is casting at all from the confines of the portable shanty that I am too much of a woosy to leave. I do believe that panfish caught through the ice and left right on the ice until you take them home to clean them when they are still half frozen are the best tasting fish You can get.
THAT’S what the joke was about ice-fly-fishing. building a shanty that’s 4 feet wide by 60 feet long with a 15 foot ceiling, just for a 30 foot cast. The sad thing I’m sure more than couple fly anglers have actually thought…"I wonder if I could build…"
I know a number of other folks here that live in the northern part of the US and Canada ice-fish, so I wanted to share these. I hope nobody minds stretching the limit of this fly-tying forum to such extreme limits?
